Week 2: SketchUp

This sketch is one that I managed to finish in class during Week 1, as a response to the words 'Unnamed' and 'Spike'. These were my nouns for an unnamed violin by Stradivari, and a motorbike by Kimura. Matt found it to be the only really interesting concept that I had managed to bust out, so here I present a snapshot on my work developing this sketch over the past week.

Over the course of a few nights losing time learning the joys of SketchUp, I took the above, and began with the central element - the suspension beam. When I started this initial sketch, I knew there would be more than one beam. As my studio space is to be for Antonio Stradivari, I was entertaining the basic idea that the beam and cables could function as a structural interpretation of the strings wound tight over a violin bridge.

Following a development of four beams and cables anchored to a cliff face, I began on the hanging workshop. I considered a single unti hanging at the end of my suspension bridge, but in the end, the placement of two circular pavilions brought balance to the whole, and brought a weight to the workshop space that justified what was a considerable structural element in the bridge.

Workshop space. Client - Antonio Stradivari.

Thinking I had made a good start, I moved on to consider the underground space. The use of the proper noun to describe my chosen artworks that were the subject of this exercise allowed me to bring a high degree of abstraction to my visual response. As with the workshop for Stradivari that came from 'Unnamed', the motorbike workshop is an attempt to respond to the work of the artist, rather than a literally 'spiky' space. What resulted was a double storey garage space whose general shape is derived to some degree from the contours of Spike's petrol tank. 

Workshop Space. Client - Shinya Kimura.